During her week at Claire’s side, Grace had hours to try to solve her seemingly insurmountable problem. She, her children, and her mother can’t live in Gladys’s house indefinitely. Grace has to find another place for them, or at least convince the building commission to put her near the head of the line for a new house. She’s a single parent without a home. Won’t they view that situation as more dire than that of a family with multiple adults to earn money? But even if she were to persuade an official today, it will take months for the house to be ready.
One night when she can’t sleep, she has a thought that at first repulses her and then begins to seem sensible. If Gladys will loan her the Chevrolet, Grace can drive to Merle Holland’s house to see if it’s empty. If it is, she can bring her children and her mother there; her mother can watch the children while Grace looks for work. They won’t have to furnish a home, and in the spring, there will be flowers. There are plenty of bedrooms for all of them, and it has the added advantage of being the first place Gene might go when he returns from wherever he’s been. By morning, the plan has solidified.
“Mother, I have an idea. What if I were to take a drive to Merle Holland’s house—Gene’s house now. And if I found it empty, we—the kids, me, you—could move in there. It would be housing, and it would take the burden off Gladys and Evelyn. We could open all the windows for a few minutes, let in fresh air, see to the linens and pots and pans. It’s possible there’s an entire house ready for us to inhabit.”
“But it would be trespassing,” her mother says.
“Not really. Think about it. Gene inherited the house, he’s missing, I’m his wife, these are his children, he would want us to have shelter.”
“But how could you settle into the house of a woman who never had a good thing to say about you?”
“Times have changed, Mother. I’ve changed. I could settle into her house just fine. And, if I recall, there’s a nursery with a crib and toys. I’ll go first to make sure it hasn’t been taken over by squatters or by a long-lost cousin of Gene’s I’ve never heard of. I might try to do some dusting, make sure the utilities haven’t been turned off. The house has never been listed for sale, because Gene wanted us to move there.” She pauses. If he only knew.
“Well, it’s a thought. I do feel a bit in the way here.”
Grace meets her mother’s eyes and knows she understands the relationship between Gladys and Evelyn. How could she not? Grace would like to query her mother further, but now is not the time.
If Grace moved into Merle’s, she would have to relinquish access to a car, a hardship after having learned to drive. There has to be a bus, she reasons, that travels along the coast road. It’s only then that it occurs to her that Merle’s house might have burned to the ground as well.
Her anxiety builds as she drives toward the shore and sees that most of the coastal land is black. When she turns the corner to enter Merle’s neighborhood, however, she sees that the houses are intact. She pulls into the driveway as if she were a newcomer to a bridge group. Gene had a key to the house, but she doesn’t. There’s nothing to search, not Gene’s pockets, not a drawer in which he might have left the key. She climbs the stairs, and as she suspected the door is locked. She lifts up mats, sticks her finger into flowerpots, reaches for ledges. She descends the steps and walks to one side of the house, searching for a window that might be partially raised. Now that she’s here, the urge to break into the house is strong. She scans basement windows, tries the bulkhead, and attempts to shimmy a window that looks unlocked but is stuck. By the time she’s reached the back of the house, she’s nearly given up. She tries the porch door, and it opens. She tries the back door, and it gives. How simple. It’s then that Grace hears music and freezes.
Someone in the house is playing a record. Or does the music come from a radio left on? She moves cautiously toward the hall, the one that leads to both the sitting room and the turret. The music grows louder each step she takes, and she realizes it’s coming from upstairs. It has to be Gene—he’s alive! Part of her wants to run up the stairs, shouting his name, and part of her is mortified. If it’s Gene, why is he living here without her? Why has he not taken the trouble to find his wife and children?
She can see in her mind’s eye a sweep of the keyboard, a rumbling of deep chords, while the melody skips along, and that’s how it feels—the melody skipping—and then the two are brought together in a powerful crescendo that causes hairs to rise at the back of her neck and her eyes to close. The sound is pure, sublime. It can’t be a record or a radio broadcast. She finds a chair next to a telephone table and ever so quietly, so as not to disturb, she sits. She had no idea her husband was talented in this way.
Grace is reminded of tinkling broken glass, then of someone in great command, then of a deep and primitive growl from the lower notes. The melody, partially melancholic, moves her. It seems to seep through her skin and find its way to her center. Is it from musical notes that true longing is born? The desire to have the same thing again and again? After all, a mother’s song to an infant is a melody. Childlike and not always beautiful, but it’s a touchstone that one might long for in life. Grace craves the delicate touch of fingers on the keys, which she feels as fingers along the back of her neck. She bends her head.
The music ends.
Footsteps from a room into an upper hallway. Perhaps Gene sees Grace’s boots. She can hear him coming down the stairs. She can’t stand. Not yet.
There’s a moment of hesitation. Both Grace and the stranger begin to speak at once.
“You play beautifully.”
“I didn’t know the house was inhabited. I beg your pardon.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“This house.”
“It seemed uninhabited.”
“It is. It isn’t. How did you get in?”
“Houses like these are always easy to get into. Impossible to secure.”
“I think…”
“I think…”
“This house belongs to my husband. I’m Grace Holland.”
“Aidan Berne.”
They shake hands. His grip is warm.
Grace sets the kettle to boil, finding tea, sugar, a little milk, and producing from a cupboard a package of Lorna Doone cookies. She wonders if Aidan Berne, too, lost everything in the fire.
He’s at least six feet tall. He wears his light brown hair long. His eyes are light brown, she concludes, during the brief glances her way. He has on a navy sweater and gray wool pants in the drafty house. She interrupted him in his slippers.
“When did you come here?” she asks.
“The afternoon the fire hit Kennebunk. We were in the middle of rehearsals when men warned us through bullhorns to get out of town. We packed up quickly and fled to waiting cars, and I managed to snag a seat. Then they let us out on Route One with no instructions. They said they had to go back into the village to rescue more. We could hardly complain.” He takes a sip of tea and holds out the plate of cookies to Grace. She takes one.
“We started walking away from the fire,” he continues. “Those who knew the area slipped down dirt roads leading to cottages, but we could see that the fire was beginning to invade the woods along the coast. We started running. When I looked up the hill, I caught sight of a piano in a round room, just a glimpse, and I peeled off. I played until nearly eight in the morning.”
“What were you playing just now?” Grace asks. She has on Joan’s blue wedding suit, having decided she should dress up a bit for Merle’s house.
“Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto.”
“You can play that from memory?”
“A lot of people can. Well, not a lot. A few. It’s meant for an orchestra and a piano.”
“I was moved,” Grace admits.